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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30092628">steady, steady, steady this heart of mine</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/noharlembeat/pseuds/noharlembeat'>noharlembeat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adoption, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Reverse Robins, past jon kent/damian wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:48:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,936</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30092628</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/noharlembeat/pseuds/noharlembeat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian doesn't meet Dick the night his parents die.</p>
<p>He meets him almost a week later.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>199</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>steady, steady, steady this heart of mine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There are times that Damian thinks he came to his father when his father was too young. His father wasn’t ready for a child then, especially not one as solemn and dark eyed as Damian Al Ghul. Damian was violent and his father was not prepared, and he was too well trained. They clashed. It was a bad fit.</p>
<p>Which is perhaps why Damian grew so wary of being replaced, but so critical and so dispassionate about being in his father’s shadow. It is perhaps why Damian left too young, ostensibly for college, leaving behind his role at his father’s side too soon, leaving a gap where Tim could see that pain. That heaviness that Damian ignored turned to something toxic, and Tim - a ghost they never saw, came to replace him.</p>
<p>Well.</p>
<p>Replace is an ugly word. Tim had a family, Tim did not need Damian’s, at least until Tim almost died, until he had both his legs broken beyond reasonable repair and his lungs were so damaged as to always be on the edge of collapse. And then maybe Damian tried - really tried - to convince his father that another child, another sidekick, was a bad idea. Batman and his shadows would simply die out. It was better, even as Damian took on Nightwing to Jon’s Flamebird. It worked, for a little while. For almost a year, there was no other child, and Tim took to working all his cases on the comms and keeping Batman safe in other ways.</p>
<p>But that was only for a little while.</p>
<p>It somehow made sense when Damian came home one day for dinner and there was a feral child there. Not because Batman needed another partner, but because just to see Jason and his father together-</p>
<p>-Tim had not replaced him. And Damian would never be so crass as to be threatened by a twelve year old. But if there was ever a child who should have belonged to Bruce Wayne the entire time, it was always going to be Jason Todd; bright, and sharp, and eager with a smile. Jason Todd who was a rescue dog turned loyal beyond comprehension. Damian sees it all the time; they bite until <i>that person</i> comes by. </p>
<p>And Father - and <i>Bruce</i> - he lit up under that attention. Father <i>loved</i> - loves - Damian, but he doesn’t really like Damian that much. Jason is the son he should have always had. Jason - who didn’t want a legacy, who is <i>Bluejay</i> - loves Gotham as much, if not more, than Father. Jason knows the real pain in Gotham’s soul because he’s not from anywhere else, and he doesn’t want anywhere else. Jason is loud and boisterous in his passion in a way that both Damian and Tim were not, he is kind and compassionate in a way that both Damian and Tim <i>are</i> not. </p>
<p>And it’s just that Jason wants <i>so much</i> to be loved, so much more than Damian ever did. Both he and Tim wanted to be needed, but need does not beget that unwavering devotion that his - their - father displays. </p>
<p>He knew Jason would be it. Jason has his father’s whole heart in one hand for almost two years, before one day Jason texted to ask Damian if he wanted to go to the circus, and Damian scoffed and texted back a curt no.</p>
<p>The night that he meets Richard John Grayson isn’t that night.</p>
<p>In fact, it’s almost a full week later; Nightwing is on patrol in Gotham. It’s a cold night, leisurely, quiet; the kind of night that Damian does not particularly relish. When Gotham is quietest, that’s when Damian feels the most stressed, like at any moment something might happen. The city might erupt in flames. Or there might be an earthquake, as though the criminals are dogs who can sense the tension in the earth.</p>
<p>It’s absurd, mostly because it isn’t true. Damian knows it. He feels the stress in his shoulders anyway. He sees Batman and Bluejay flying a few rooftops away. He knows they’re on a case for the latest boy that his father has taken in. He rolls his shoulders and lets them pass, waiting as he sits at the edge of a gargoyle and watches -</p>
<p>-is that a child? Damian, of all people, knows he shouldn’t be surprised. <i>He</i> was once that child. It’s a very small shape, anyway, wearing a leotard, and Damian only knows that because he sees the flash of pale legs as the child runs, as he leaps what should be an impossible distance for someone so small. Damian is in motion before his brain catches up, his body flinging itself over the ledge and towards that small person, who is gunning it after Batman.</p>
<p>The child made the first jump, and Damian can see him triangulate the next. He can almost see the calculus of the gargoyle, the fire escape, the ledge, and then the roof. He can almost see this child - tiny, probably 40 pounds at the heaviest, hit each of those marks, flipping as he goes.</p>
<p>Damian is, well.</p>
<p>Impressed.</p>
<p>He catches up just as the kid is running for the third jump. “Where are you going?” he asks, from almost directly behind him.</p>
<p>Damian is very good. Better than his father, some might say (some being Damian himself, and on days he’s angry with Bruce, Tim). He’s certainly faster, and more silent. His costume is black from top to bottom, with only accents in muted gray, and his boots have a silencing tread. So he knows to lift his hands and catch the child as the child jumps roughly a foot in the air. “Let go!” the child snaps, wiggling against his grip. “I’m going to lose them!”</p>
<p>“I think you already have,” Nightwing replies.</p>
<p>“No!” the child says, and keeps wiggling, and kicks at Nightwing. It’s futile. He might have freakishly strong legs, but Nightwing is no fool. He turns the kid over, holding him at arms length by the ankles. “Let go!” the child yells. “I have to talk to Batman!”</p>
<p>“Do you?” Nightwing asks, shaking him gently. There is a rough snarl as the boy bends up with uncanny strength to grip Nightwing’s hands. “I think Batman is busy. Don’t you have elsewhere to be?”</p>
<p>The boy keeps wiggling. “No,” he says, “Batman promised, he promised!”</p>
<p>That’s curious. “Batman keeps his word,” Nightwing offers, seriously. “If he promised something, he will do it. What did he promise you?”</p>
<p>“If you don’t let go I’ll bite,” the boy threatens.</p>
<p>“I have been bitten by better than you,” Nightwing reassures him, but then deftly takes him by the hand and flips him so his little leather-clad feet are on the roof of the building. “And it would hurt your teeth more than it would hurt me.”</p>
<p>But he grips him by arm, still, holding his wrist as he crouches down to look at him. He is used to gauging a person’s face in the dark; he’s had practice at it his entire life. Dark hair, pale eyes. Strong, for someone so small. Clearly he’s trained at something that involves aerials-</p>
<p>-ah.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take a master detective to puzzle out the boy’s identity. He’s wearing a bright green leotard like an acrobat. “Did he promise to help you find someone who hurt you? Or your family?”</p>
<p>The boy wilts like a little leaf, then, deprived of light and water. “He said he’d do it, only it’s been a week, and he hasn’t! The person who-” and Richard John Grayson goes so quiet that Nightwing can hear his heart break, he’s sure.</p>
<p>Nightwing keeps a hold of his wrist, and unfolds to his full height. “Well,” he says, carefully, “I can contact Batman right now, and tell him so,” he says.</p>
<p>Richard’s eyes go liquid, and they’re so bright that even in the dark Nightwing can see it. This boy believes in Batman like Tim did, once upon a time. </p>
<p>Like Jason does now.</p>
<p>Damian never believed in anything so fiercely. He thinks that came with an innocence that his mother hammered out of him before he really could speak. </p>
<p>Nightwing turns his comm on, and not five minutes later Batman is there; Nightwing knows him well enough that even with the cowl, the set of his lips absolutely means he’s embarrassed. He was followed by a child - again - a child in his own care, no less. Nightwing moves to the edge of the rooftop as he watches his father, who is hulking at best, attempt to come down to a child’s level to speak to him.</p>
<p>Bluejay’s there, too, lounging, one foot dangling off the edge of the building. “Hey, N,” he says, brightly, smartly. </p>
<p>“What do you think?” Nightwing asks, uncharacteristically. He knows. He almost regrets it the second that he does. </p>
<p>Bluejay turns to look at the boy, whose mouth is setting in the most stubborn shape that Nightwing has ever seen in his life. Rogues decide to destroy Gotham with less conviction. “Hard to tell,” Bluejay says, squaring his shoulders a little. He thinks Nightwing is testing him. Nightwing doesn’t correct that assumption. “He’s really quiet, usually. He cries himself to sleep when he thinks no one is listening. He’s fast. He’s really strong, and I think the only thing keeping him from swinging from the chandeliers is that he doesn’t want to risk Bruce kicking him out before Bats finds his parent’s killer.” Damian considers that; it’s not <i>he can’t reach them</i>. Interesting, and unsurprising. “He can squirm himself into and out of every tiny crack in the manor.” He goes quiet. “He was supposed to die too, you know. You weren’t there. You didn’t see his face.”</p>
<p>Bluejay is normally so boisterous, so capable, that Nightwing forgets that Jason is far more sensitive than he was when he was that age. Or Tim was, for that matter. “He wants revenge.”</p>
<p>“I think he mistakes it for justice,” Bluejay responds, and Nightwing is about to say something, when Batman gets up, and picks Richard up in his arms, pulling his cape around him. “B?” Bluejay asks, eyebrows coming right up.</p>
<p>“You and Nightwing, finish patrol. I’m taking Dick to meet with Mr. Pennyworth,” he says.</p>
<p>Bluejay looks up at Nightwing, who nods, agreeable. Bluejay pumps a fist in the air. “Awesome!” he yells. “Nightwing’s been dodging me ever since I made him promise to teach me to use a sword.”</p>
<p>“Well I’m certainly not teaching you tonight,” Nightwing replies, but it’s fine. He doesn’t mind patrolling with Bluejay - he was loathe to help Timothy, back in the day, his mother poisoned him with the words <i>replacement</i> and the terror of neglect from his other parent, but he has a stable <i>working</i> relationship with Bluejay.</p>
<p>“You say that,” Bluejay says. “Look! A mugging!” he crows, and they’re heading for that. It’s a good night, for all it started so quiet, and easy. None of the crazies are out. He sends Bluejay home just around dawn. </p>
<p>Damian lets things settle, then, for a couple of days, before he goes to manor. It’s been a long while since he’s been here, and even longer since he’s been here during daylight hours. He knows that Jason is in class, and he assumes his father is probably at Wayne Enterprises.</p>
<p>He slips in through the kitchen instead of striding in through the main door like a guest. Pennyworth is there making lunch, and a little boy - Richard - is sitting closeby, his hands on the kitchen island, his chin on his hands, his cheeks puffed all the way out. “Am I interrupting?”</p>
<p>Pennyworth turns and gives an easy, but exhausted looking smile. Honestly, Damian hasn’t seen him looking so tired since Damian himself was a child. “Master Damian,” he says, easily. “I certainly did not expect you to be here. Master Richard,” he says, and the boy looks up. “This is Damian Wayne.”</p>
<p>“Jason told me about Richard,” Damian responds. “I thought I should come by and meet him for myself.”</p>
<p>“Ah,” Pennyworth says, carefully. “Yes, Master Richard is currently in - what did you call it, again?”</p>
<p>Richard looks up, his eyes wide. “Kitchen exile,” he says, staring at Damian. He looks like the platonic ideal of a child, the kind of child who would cheerfully drink a glass of milk at a wholesome family dinner in a sitcom from the fifties. It is peculiar, Damian decides, like the boy was designed in a factory to be charming, even when his mouth is open like a fish.</p>
<p>Damian reaches over. “Close your mouth. You’ll catch flies.”</p>
<p>Richard’s mouth snaps shut, but it only lasts an instant. “You look <i>just like</i> Mr. Wayne,” he exclaims.</p>
<p>“He is my father,” Damian replies. </p>
<p>“He’s Jason’s dad, too,” Richard burbles, and gets up on the stool. It spins but Richard keeps his balance without any trouble, “but Jason doesn’t look like him like you do. Or Tim. Tim doesn’t like me,” he adds.</p>
<p>“Timothy does not really care to leave his room often, it isn’t personal,” Damian replies. Standing on the stool, taking those careful movements to stay perfectly still even as the stool spins, Richard can look him in the eye. “And I mean he’s my biological father. I am not adopted.”</p>
<p>Richard’s blue eyes cock up and down a little, like he’s taking the measure of him. Alfred is watching the stool dance like he might die of a stroke and that would be preferable to watching this child do this. Damian looks him over. “I think Pennyworth could use a bit of a break, don’t you?”</p>
<p>Richard looks over, and realizes the look on Alfred’s face, and immediately looks guilty. He sits back down. Alfred breathes, in what must be the first time for the past three minutes. “Thank you, Master Richard.”</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Richard mumbles. </p>
<p>Damian sits there in silence for a moment. “Would you like to go for a ride? To the park, perhaps?” he asks. He has no idea what possessed him to say any of that: he generally avoids parks, he doesn’t really get along with children when he is not in Nightwing, and he has nothing in common with this child at all. He thinks of Jason, who stares at him like he’s an alien when they’re not in costume, most of the time.</p>
<p>Dick looks at Alfred. “Mr. Wayne says I’m not supposed to leave the grounds,” he says, tentatively, but the hope is brimming there. Damian knows he had what might be termed an “unorthodox” childhood, but he does not ever remember, once, being excited about going to the park. Either this child is easy to entertain, or he is desperate for some stimulation. </p>
<p>Damian is banking on the latter.</p>
<p>“Pennyworth, surely my father can have no qualms if I am with him,” Damian argues. </p>
<p>Alfred, Damian assumes, has been trapped in the house with a bored child with clearly no sense of self-preservation for days. “Take one of the cars, please,” he finally concedes. “I know the motorbike is tempting, but certainly I know Master Bruce would feel safer with a child in a seat belt, as would I.”</p>
<p>Damian looks over at Richard, who jumped off the stool and is already running. The stool swivels behind him. “I’m going to get a sweater, Mr. Pennyworth!” he yells as he ping-pongs down the hall. </p>
<p>Damian looks over at Alfred. “Is he that bad?” he asks.</p>
<p>“Oh, he is very sweet,” Alfred replies, turning back to the stove. “But no child of Master Bruce’s has had less sense of mortal peril than that one.”</p>
<p>“I seem to recall I was a bit of a nightmare,” Damian admits, looking down.</p>
<p>Alfred shakes his head. “Compared to that one,” he says, “you had the restraint of an angel.”</p>
<p>~~~~</p>
<p>There are other children at the park, a large, clean one just a few miles from the Manor. They haven’t even crossed the bridge to Gotham; this is one of those parks that is frequented by au pairs and nannies and their wards, not by drug dealers and Poison Ivy. Richard seems uninterested in the other children. Instead he seems happy to be doing something that isn’t sitting in the manor, watching Alfred work. </p>
<p>And he’s <i>talking</i>.</p>
<p>In fact, he started asking questions the moment they got in the car. <i>How old are you</i> and <i>would you have taken me on a motorcycle if Alfred hadn’t made us take the car</i> and <i>does Tim ever smile</i> and <i>does Jason ever stop reading</i>, barely taking in the answer before asking another one.</p>
<p>He is not the same child with the liquid eyes and the desperation for Batman to give him justice that Nightwing met. He’s almost entirely the opposite, now, laughing, almost dancing. He does not seem to be the picture of grief that Jason had painted. He pelts Damian with questions, gets out of the car and runs tumbling in cartwheels over the grass with a practiced grace that Jason does not have and Damian certainly did it. It’s performative. </p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p>It’s all performative. All that energy is real, but the lack of grief, that’s the performance, and now Damian can see it. The way his smile is just a little wide. The way he waves at the women pushing strollers, the way he walks on his hands, everything. </p>
<p>Damian did something similar, at that age. Every emotion he had was stuffed so far away he could not feel them, until one day something happened and he did, and everything was black and red violence. But it was not grief; it was terror. Terror of his mother, of his grandfather, of failure. Of killing when his father did not want him to, and of not killing, when his mother did. “Why didn’t you go with the circus?” he asks, suddenly.</p>
<p>Richard is in a handstand, and he tumbles down. “Mr. Haly said I couldn’t. The state said I couldn’t.” He scowls. “It’s stupid,” he admits. “Why don’t you live at the manor?”</p>
<p>“Because I’m an adult,” Damian replies. “I live in Gotham, because it’s easier to get to work.”</p>
<p>“Sounds boring,” Richard decrees.</p>
<p>“And the manor is so interesting?” Damian asks. “You’re the one in rapture over a public park.”</p>
<p>Richard’s smile is a crooked, precious thing. He looks like he didn’t expect that. “Yeah, but I’m not rich,” he says, extending his arms out and spinning. “Rich people are so weird!”</p>
<p>Damian can’t really argue with that. “Are they going to put you in school?” he asks. “You’re certainly old enough for it.”</p>
<p>Richard hops up onto the bench that Damian is sitting on, his legs over the back, his body on the seat, so he can look at Damian. “Mr. Wayne isn’t going to keep me,” he says. “Only until Batman catches the man who killed my parents. Only until the trial.”</p>
<p>That does not sound like Damian’s father. “Did he say that?”</p>
<p>Richard puffs out his cheeks. “No,” he says, decisively. </p>
<p>“What did my father say?”</p>
<p>“That I could stay as long as I wanted,” he admits. “But he’s not going to keep me.”</p>
<p>Damian tilts his head, as if this confusing boy will make sense from a different angle. “Then who told you that? Says who?” he says, barely tripping on the colloquialism.</p>
<p>His cheeks puff out again. “I told me,” Richard announces. “Says me.”</p>
<p>~~~~</p>
<p>Damian’s apartment in Gotham is only a few blocks from the Wayne Enterprises main office; a penthouse that he purchased because of the view, unparalleled, and because of the large windows, but mostly because of the rooftop access and the basement tunnels straight to the WE R&amp;D labs. </p>
<p>He also bought it when he thought he would have a life with Jon, before Jon returned to Metropolis, before Jon fell in love with a fellow intern at the Daily Planet and fell out of love with the life of a vigilante and with Damian Wayne. It was, Damian believes, not entirely Jon’s fault. Damian loves like his mother, relentless, furious, without moderation, but no one ever taught him to love safely, to feel safe in it. The intensity of it was too much for Jon. </p>
<p>It would be, Damian realized, likely too much for anyone.</p>
<p>So on some nights it feels too big. The apartment, and the hole inside of himself.</p>
<p>He gets home almost at dawn. He scowls as he goes through his messages; he scowls as he feeds the cat, as he makes dinner, as he eats it. As he goes to his computer, and pulls up Richard Grayson’s file on the shared server that Tim built. It’s not the computer in the cave; he can’t run analyses on it, for instance. But it has a lot of information on it, and it means that Damian doesn’t have to go home every time he’s working a case. </p>
<p>He reads over Richard’s file: there’s nothing alarming on it. In fact, it’s such an easy case - mob, protection money, not a costumed rogue in sight - that he knows that the chances are good that his father is just taking the extra time to build it up as solidly as possible. There’s a video; cellphone camera footage of the night. It’s only six seconds, and there’s a flip and a fall and a terrible scream.</p>
<p>It’s so undramatic, so <i>commonplace</i>, it’s almost vulgar. Just. A flip, a fall. A scream. Damian plays it again, and nothing changes. He can’t even see Richard, only a pair of people at the apex of a grand trick, and a trapeze cord breaking so smoothly that it barely even snaps.</p>
<p>He closes his laptop.</p>
<p>He calls his father.</p>
<p>“Damian?” Bruce answers, slightly confused. “Is everything all right?”</p>
<p>Damian realizes he probably should call more; he relies on Alfred far too much, relies on him to tell Bruce everything, to keep him appraised of the manor. “Yes,” he responds, touching his mouth a little. “I wanted to ask you about the boy.”</p>
<p>“The boy?” Bruce asks, and then it clicks. “You mean Dick?”</p>
<p>“That is an insufferably bad name for a child,” Damian responds.</p>
<p>Bruce makes a little noise. “It’s what he likes to be called,” he says. “What about him?”</p>
<p>“Are you bringing in Zucco?” Damian asks, quietly. “You have all the evidence you need.”</p>
<p>There is a brief pause. “You’ve never shown an interest in these mob cases,” his father responds, and for the most part, he’s right. Damian worked them when he was a child because it’s what needed to be done, but largely he leaves that to the others. The mob always felt so petty, small. Crime on a big scale, but not grandiose. He supposes he has his grandfather to thank for that. Elegance and grandeur over racketeering. Assassins over hitmen. “You spoke to him.”</p>
<p>“He’s unhappy.”</p>
<p>“His parents died.”</p>
<p>“And so I ask you again: are you bringing in Zucco?” Damian asks.</p>
<p>Bruce snorts. “Is this the only reason you called, Damian?” he asks, and he sounds tired. He always sounds tired, when he says Damian’s name. But before Damian can ask again, he speaks. “We delivered him to the police an hour ago.”</p>
<p>Damian hangs up the phone before he can say another word. Stares at it. Wonders why this matters so much. That boy is just a case, that boy is just a victim who is now going to go to a foster home - probably somewhere nice, chosen by Bruce, and filtered through the foster system - and he will grow up marked by trauma but fine. </p>
<p>He thinks of the way Dick looked, that brightness in his eyes in the dark and the brittle mask of a smile during the day.</p>
<p>He sits there for a long moment, and looks out at the rising sun, and he knows that he’s expected at WE in a couple of hours. He knows he should get a nap in, if he expects to work a full day and not snap at the unfortunate intern who is handling some minute database task. </p>
<p>He stares at his phone. He texts Tim: <i>is father gone?</i></p>
<p>A minute later, Tim responds. <i>2 minutes.</i></p>
<p>He presses the phone to his mouth, and gets up, heads downstairs, and is on his bike before he realizes it. In twenty minutes, he’s at the manor, just as Alfred is ushering Jason into the back of a car. “School?”</p>
<p>“Field trip to the museum today!” Jason announces, brightly. His hair is drying in sweet, rolling curls, and his smile is blinding. He looks like the very model of a good son, freshly pressed and out of the wash. “What are you doing here? B left for work like half an hour ago.”</p>
<p>That’s a good question. “I thought Richard might want to go out,” he says.</p>
<p>Alfred looks over, then, his eyebrows coming up just a little, like he’s either surprised, or thinking very carefully about the next words out of his mouth. Jason’s eyebrows pinch together. Damian took no interest in Tim - negative interest, maybe, enraged interest - and relatively little interest in Jason, although certainly more care with Bluejay. He never just showed up to take either boy out. “Don’t you have work?” Jason asks, carefully.</p>
<p>“I don’t have any meetings until this afternoon,” Damian says casually, like this is not a big deal.</p>
<p>Jason stares even more. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping, then?” he asks, because Jason has always been up front with the lack of self-care that takes place in the Wayne household.</p>
<p>“I’m sure Master Damian has considered all of his responsibilities before coming out here,” Alfred says, with that tone that suggests that if he hasn’t, he should now.</p>
<p>Damian makes a small clicking sound as he passes the two of them. “Enjoy the museum,” he tells Jason.</p>
<p>He thinks the hallway is empty until he hears someone screech his name, and he looks up just in time to spot Richard at the very top of the stairs, and watches in complete fascination as he literally handsprings down. Richard finishes his last handspring with a flourish and a bow.</p>
<p>Damian stands in silence. “What are they feeding you?” he asks. It is seven thirty in the morning.</p>
<p>“You’re supposed to <i>clap</i>,” Richard admonishes. “What are you doing here? Did you come to say hello? Mr. Wayne is already gone, and Tim is supposed to make sure I-” and then he takes a moment, and in a pitch perfect English accent and an imitation of Alfred that makes Damian move his head back just a little, shocked, says, “<i>do not damage yourself, or, God forbid, the chandeliers</i>.” </p>
<p>“I think he really would prefer you not to damage yourself,” he tells Richard, gently.</p>
<p>“I know,” Richard replies, just a little coy. “He wants to pretend he cares more about the house than he does about me, but he’s really not very good at it. I think I make him tired,” he admits. “I think I make everyone tired.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps you should try to be a little less exhausting,” Damian offers, although he does not say that he doesn’t make Damian tired. Instead Damian feels like someone pressed a livewire right into his heart. </p>
<p>Richard shakes his head. “No,” he says. “It’s good for everyone to be a little more cheerful,” he announces. “So what are you doing here?”</p>
<p>“I came to take you for breakfast, or at least out to work some of that energy you have out. Perhaps the zoo?” he offers. Damian likes the zoo; Damian likes animals. They have never found much reason to hurt him.</p>
<p>Richard’s smile suddenly turns blinding, like light; it makes Damian realize how fake it was just a moment ago. “Yes!” he crows. “Should we invite Tim?”</p>
<p>“Timothy will be grateful for the peace and quiet,” Damian responds. “Go fetch your coat, and I will get the keys to one of the cars.”</p>
<p>They go to the zoo; Richard likes the elephants best, so Damian buys him a stuffed elephant that is roughly half his size, and then takes him for lunch. Bruce calls at least three times during their outing, but Damian ignores it. </p>
<p>He returns Richard to the manor just after lunch, and makes it to the office just in time for his first meeting, which allows him to avoid his father for another hour, before Bruce shows up in his office with his best Brucie Wayne look, which Damian hates. He closes the door, and he settles more into Bruce Wayne, which is still just slightly uncomfortable. “You took Dick out?”</p>
<p>“To the zoo,” he says, looking at his papers. “Is that a problem?”</p>
<p>Bruce looks unsure, then. Like he’s been caught flat-footed, even though they both know that’s not true. Damian looks up at him blandly, and there’s this lingering, uncomfortable silence between them. “No,” Bruce finally says, careful. “I suppose I should thank you.”</p>
<p>There’s silence between them again. “Oh,” Damian replies. </p>
<p>Bruce continues. “You never really took an interest in Jason,” he says, “I didn’t think you liked children.”</p>
<p><i>Jason</i>, Damian doesn’t say as he looks up, <i>was always yours.</i> “Jason was older. Jason has school,” he finally manages, although he hears how weak that sounds, too. He doesn’t know how to explain why he likes to spend time with Richard, who is, by all accounts, someone he shouldn’t be able to stand. He talks too much, he’s too earnest, but all of that acting, it’s so familiar. </p>
<p>It makes the brightness shine even more, when he finally lets it out.</p>
<p>“Dick will be in school soon,” Bruce says. “Now that Zucco’s in jail, we have time, before the trial.”</p>
<p>Damian does not mention that Richard doesn’t want to be kept in the manor. He thinks what Richard wants - needs - is more attention than anyone in the manor is capable of giving. Between Tim and Jason, and Batman, there is no air in there.</p>
<p>Everyone looks tired. </p>
<p>Still. “Are you sending him to Gotham Academy?” he asks. Jason attends there; Jason loves it. He imagines Richard in one of the uniforms, dulled. He imagines Richard in league clothes, and somehow, perversely, it fits him more. He erases both images from his head.</p>
<p>Bruce nods a little. Ah.</p>
<p>He intends on keeping him.</p>
<p>“Do you intend on introducing him to the family business?” he asks, then. </p>
<p>Bruce’s mouth goes a little bit flat, and he shakes his head. “No,” he lies, because Damian knows. A boy like that, talented, fearless, curious, brave? Once Jason grows out of being a sidekick, he’ll slot Richard in like he belonged there the entire time. Damian knows it, he sees it better than anyone. Damian was the first, has been with his father the longest, knows when he is lying, even to himself.</p>
<p>But then Bruce speaks again. “You could be a good big brother,” he says, and Damian thinks it is the first time that Bruce has ever said those words to him. “If that’s what you wanted.”</p>
<p>Damian goes quiet. “I suppose I will see you for dinner, then. I can call Alfred, and let him know.”</p>
<p>Bruce looks so pleased that Damian suspects someone will think he’s gotten away with something insidious, like having an affair with one of the new interns.</p>
<p>Damian does go to dinner; it’s a typical meal at the Wayne household, with Timothy refusing to come up, Jason making inside jokes as he eats, as he inhales food like he’s a vacuum, with Bruce laughing at those jokes and Alfred spooning more broccoli onto Damian’s plate and Richard trying, almost shyly, to get Bruce’s attention.</p>
<p>It’s strange. Damian has only spent a little time with the boy, but he’s never seen him look quite so unsure, quite so soft. Jason tries to include him, but it’s with the carelessness of a fourteen year old who doesn’t know he’s not doing a very good job, and Bruce-</p>
<p>-well.</p>
<p>Damian was on the receiving end of quiet dinners and a father who didn’t know what to do with him for years. Jason is a magnet for all that attention, because he just needs it so badly in a way that Damian never did. “They had a whole dinosaur excavation planned, and they found this clutch of eggs, which they didn’t expect, and so they showed us how they open the eggs to keep everything intact,” Jason is explaining as he reaches for another roll. </p>
<p>“I didn’t know the Natural History Museum was doing that with eighth graders,” Bruce replies.</p>
<p>“Damian got me a giant elephant,” Richard tries, valiantly. “It’s almost as big as I am.”</p>
<p>Damian watches as Jason looks over. “A stuffed elephant?” he confirms.</p>
<p>Richard levels a look at Jason, like maybe he’s a little dim, which is very funny, because Jason is not at all stupid. “Real elephants are a lot bigger,” he points out. “But we could probably keep one here. My best friend was an elephant,” he explains to Bruce, “back at the circus.”</p>
<p>“You’ll make new friends in school,” Bruce says carefully.</p>
<p>Richard does not look impressed. “None of them will be as good as an elephant.”</p>
<p>There is a moment of silence. “I once asked Father for a cow,” Damian says, clearing his throat.</p>
<p>Everyone swivels their heads to look at Damian. “A cow?” Jason asks, and then looks back at Bruce. “Damian wanted a cow?”</p>
<p>“There were...specific…” Bruce begins, because the story involves his nighttime activities.</p>
<p>Richard does not care. “What were you going to name it?” he asks, his mouth open. “What happened to it?”</p>
<p>“I had not considered a name. She lives in Smallville, now, at a farm,” Damian says.</p>
<p>“A <i>cow</i>?” Jason says, again, his roll all but forgotten. “What would you do with a cow?”</p>
<p>“I asked him the same thing,” Bruce says smugly.</p>
<p>Richard, however, seems vaguely enchanted by this. “Is what why you liked all the wildebeest at the zoo today?”</p>
<p>“Do not be absurd,” Damian says, and then, possessed by the desire to make Richard laugh, although he cannot possibly explain why, he says, “it was the hippos that I would have wanted.” And then he lowers his head, and makes a low noise like he is a hippo, in Richard’s direction.</p>
<p>Richard laughs.</p>
<p>Jason looks at him like he’s grown another head.</p>
<p>His father looks at him like he’s almost entirely sure his son has been replaced by a pod person.</p>
<p>Alfred does not seem terribly surprised, but then, Alfred looks like he could sleep for about a year and it would still not be enough. “Dessert?” he asks, and the riot that follows could likely be heard in Gotham.</p>
<p>After, when Damian is leaving, Richard follows him. “Are you going home?” he asks, “You could just stay here.”</p>
<p>They’re alone, and so Damian crouches down, like he was taught, when he was learning how to speak to children as Nightwing. Like Jon taught him. “I have a cat at home,” he says. “His name is Alfred. I need to go home to take care of him.”</p>
<p>There’s a pause, a precipice, and Damian almost wonders if Richard is about to ask to come with him. But it doesn’t happen. “Can you come back tomorrow?” Richard asks, quietly.</p>
<p>“I can come back every day,” he reassures him, and Richard goes back inside.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>He does come back every day. He comes back every day and he’s not sure how it happened. Sometimes it’s only for an hour or so, to have tea with Alfred and Richard and get Richard some time with an adult who will let him swing wildly from the playset in the garden. Sometimes he takes Richard out, to the movies, or the park, or, once, memorably, shopping. All of these things seem new and strange to Richard, too, who admits he never really left the circus very much.</p>
<p>Every time he touches on that topic he goes a little quiet, and it takes a while for Damian to see the part of him that lights up on novelty.</p>
<p>But little by little the brittle happiness cracks, and Damian sees this lick of rage. It’s never directed at people; but Richard is only eight years old. He doesn’t know how to express it. For an eight year old, he has an impressive command of his emotions, but-</p>
<p>-the first time he watches Richard give into it, it’s the first day of the trial, and Richard wants to go, but Alfred says no, because Bruce said no, and Damian arrives just in time to watch Richard go outside, find a branch, and slam it against a tree so hard it shatters.</p>
<p>Damian sits, and waits, as Richard stomps around the garden and steps on Alfred’s roses and smashes an old, terrifying statue of a gnome that Bruce’s Aunt Agatha gave him when Damian was a child. Damian hated that thing for a long time.</p>
<p>And then he turns and sees Damian, waiting, and he looks at the disaster that he incurred, and he takes a breath. “I’m not sorry,” he says, severely.</p>
<p>“That statue deserved what it got,” Damian agrees, casually. “But I suspect you will be sorry when Pennyworth sees his roses.”</p>
<p>Dick looks at the rosebushes, destroyed, and he deflates. “Alfred said I couldn’t go to the trial.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Damian says, “Father called to tell me.” He reaches for Richard’s tiny, grubby hand. “Come on then. Best confess now, and make amends.”</p>
<p>Alfred looks annoyed when he learns of the great rosebush massacre, but Richard offers to help plant new ones, and Damian offers to go over to the old Kane estate and get the prized roses there for transplanting, and it is, all in all, a relatively benign way to end a stressful morning.</p>
<p>The trial continues, and Richard has to testify. Everyone in the family is there, even Timothy, who gleefully smacks the shins of the defense lawyer with his crutches and claims it’s an accident. </p>
<p>Afterwards, Bruce comes to Damian. “Can you take him somewhere fun,” he asks, carefully. “He likes you.”</p>
<p>Damian is a little surprised. Richard looks small, standing next to Jason, who is leaning his chin on the top of Richard’s head. Neither of them had siblings growing up, but they do look like brothers now, with that comfortable familiarity of family. “Do you want me to take Jason?”</p>
<p>Bruce shakes his head. “I think it might be best if it’s just the two of you.”</p>
<p>Damian thinks about it, and nods a little. After they’re done, and they’re outside the courthouse, he reaches for Richard, who looks a little lost, and a little startled. “Come on,” he says. “I thought I might take you out.”</p>
<p>Richard looks unsure, but then he looks over at Bruce, and over at Damian, and nods. Alfred, ever prepared, hands Damian a bag. “Clothes more fit to play in,” he says, which is good, because Richard is already tugging at his tie, at his blazer.</p>
<p>Damian drives them through Gotham in silence, thinking; and then they are just outside the city. “Where are we?” Richard asks.</p>
<p>“I thought,” Damian begins, “you might want to fly.”</p>
<p>Richard peers out. It is a trapeze school. When Damian wants to fly, he goes into the city - the oldest parts of Gotham are especially good for that. But by some miracle Richard has yet to find the cave, or that Damian’s family is able to fly, too. Perhaps it is that Damian has tried to tire him out in other ways, or Jason’s sixth sense of knowing just where Richard is, or even Timothy, banging around in his crutches. </p>
<p>Richard’s mouth opens, and he reaches for the bag that Alfred sent along. “None of these are good clothes for the trapeze,” Richard wails, and looks up with such longing it might break his heart. </p>
<p>“I’m sure they can help us out,” Damian replies. </p>
<p>The man at the counter recognizes Richard even before they arrive. “Hey! You’re Dick Grayson!” he exclaims, and Richard brightens just at that. “I bet you could teach <i>us</i> a few things.”</p>
<p>Damian watches as they chat, about the trapeze, in language he barely understands, and he watches Richard open up like he’s a flower that just caught the first bit of morning sunshine. Another of the instructors comes by and seems genuinely awed that Richard is there, and the two of them find a leotard for him, show him the changing rooms.</p>
<p>Damian watches as he goes up, as he practically vaults himself up the side, watches as the other instructors and participants come out to see him up on the platform. “This kid,” one of the instructors says, “I saw him and his folks when they were here, you know, not that night, a few nights before.” He shakes his head. “I’ve been doing this a while, but I’ve never seen anything like that. In a few years, he could be the best in the world.”</p>
<p>Damian doesn’t say anything as he watches Richard check the ropes, tug the trapeze like a professional, and then he watches him fly.</p>
<p>The first night he saw him, Richard was doing something so infuriatingly and stupidly dangerous that Damian didn’t think to really be more than impressed that a child could be so good at triangulating the angles, taking into account the wind. It was professional. </p>
<p>This is not that.</p>
<p>This is joy; it’s pure unspoken pleasure as he swings, flips, catches the bar, does things that no living child should be able to do. Damian has to remind himself that at eight, he probably could have done those things, but it would have been mechanical. Soulless. Joyless. Pragmatic, practical, boring.</p>
<p>Watching Richard flip, watching those showy moves, watching him fly, it’s like watching a miracle in front of him. Where was this child? Hidden away behind fake smiles. This is what Damian was chasing for the past few weeks, and there he is.</p>
<p>Until suddenly he’s falling, and he isn’t. He lands in the net, safely, but he lies there, tiny and alone.</p>
<p>Damian looks at the instructors, who are all looking like they had the air punched out of their lungs, and he’s running to the net, running and climbing in. Richard is in the middle, staring at the sky, and then suddenly he screams, but it’s not in physical pain. Damian is in the net, and Richard is crying out, and when he reaches the middle, Richard sees him and stays there. </p>
<p>He’s crying like the world is ending and he just found out.</p>
<p>He’s crying like he’s lost everything.</p>
<p>Damian remembers that pain. It’s not exactly the same, not close; the night that Jon left him, the night that Tim was suddenly gone, hurt, the night his mother tried to kill him. Pain that shaped him. Pain that changed the world.</p>
<p>He suddenly wishes he had cried.</p>
<p>He reaches for Richard, and for a moment Richard is stiff, a small, impossibly bitter thing, and then the moment passes and he’s curled up in Damian’s arms, sobbing against his shirt. Damian sits there a long moment, curving around him. The world could come for them, the Joker himself could appear and take out the entire surrounding environs, and he wouldn’t move. </p>
<p>It takes Richard a long time, but then he’s gripping Damian’s shirt, clinging like a baby bat. “Do you want to tell me?” Damian asks, curving in just a little, his nose tucked close to Richard’s forehead.</p>
<p>“I fell because no one was there to catch me,” he says, “I fell because no one is left. I thought if Zucco went away, they would come back, but they’re <i>never coming back</i>. Dami,” he starts, and the sobbing is coming back. “I want my mama,” he wails, open mouthed, gasping for air.</p>
<p>There is nothing Damian can do to make that pain go away.</p>
<p>There is nothing anyone can do.</p>
<p>He carries Richard to the car, then, holding him close the entire time. The employees are distressed, but Damian says it’s all right; he’s fine, it wasn’t the fall, no one is getting sued, it really is <i>fine</i>, and then he’s driving them.</p>
<p>He’s halfway to the city when he realizes he’s not going to the manor. Richard is fast asleep, exhausted by grief, tucked in the backseat and drooling against the window. Damian drives to his apartment and carries him into the elevator, up, into the penthouse.</p>
<p>Richard barely weighs anything; it’s like carrying a bird.</p>
<p>He is about to put him in the guest bedroom, when he thinks, no. Richard might wake up there alone, and be afraid. It seems inappropriate to put him on his own bed, so he settles for the couch, and Damian takes a nearby chair.</p>
<p>Richard sleeps, and Damian looks at him, this tiny boy, curled up tight. He reminds him so much of himself, but who he could have been, if people had loved him, the way a person is meant to be loved. He thinks of the apartment. </p>
<p>Alfred sees the sleeping boy, and jumps up to sleep next to him, curling into a tight little ball.</p>
<p>Damian thinks of the work. Of what his father did, when he took in Damian, Timothy, Jason.</p>
<p>Jason always fit into his father’s life like he was always meant to be there, and suddenly Damian understands it. </p>
<p>When Richard wakes up, it’s almost dinnertime, and he looks lost. Damian is on his laptop, and he looks over just as Richard gasps. Alfred flees with the sudden movement. “Dami-” he starts, and he looks over. “Where am I?”</p>
<p>“My apartment,” Damian replies. He closes his laptop. “Are you hungry?”</p>
<p>Richard takes a moment to think about, and he nods, so Damian gets up. There isn’t much in the way of snacks, but there’s always the makings of a cheese sandwich, so he makes one as Richard wraps himself in the blanket that Damian had covered him in. </p>
<p>He walks over and offers it. Richard takes it with a moment’s consideration, and looks at it like it might be toxic. “It’s just cheddar,” Damian assures him, and Dick takes a bite, makes a noise that signals it’s acceptable, and then starts eating.</p>
<p>Damian lets him, for a moment, and then he clears his throat. “I’ll catch you,” he says.</p>
<p>“What?” Richard garbles, his mouth full of sandwich.</p>
<p>Damian tries again, sitting next to him. “I know I am not very old,” he starts, “and I know this apartment is not like the manor, but if you like, you can live here. With me. I-” he stops. Richard is staring at him with those big blue eyes. Damian looks at his hands. “I know I will never be your father. I don’t wish to replace him, or your mother. But. I could catch you.” He starts. Stops. It all sounded so much better in his head.</p>
<p>“Robin,” Richard says, carefully. “My mama called me Robin. Her little Robin, she would say,” he tells him. “You can call me Robin.”</p>
<p>Damian wonders if he really understood that. If he understands what Damian is offering. Richard sets the plate down on the couch, and unwraps, his sandwich still in one hand as he looks around. “I am asking if I can adopt you,” Damian finally says.</p>
<p>Robin looks at him. “I know,” he says, with a little small smile. He crawls into Damian’s lap, then, and finishes his sandwich, and settles his head right over Damian’s heart.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Frankly the fact that Dick didn't adopt Damian is still a source of complete fury for me so here you go this is my fix-it solution</p>
<p>find me on tumblr @eggsac</p>
<p>comments are always desired</p></blockquote></div></div>
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